Boston city council goes paperless, creates website

Boston will be putting more of its City Council activities online according to a new initiative announced earlier this week. In 2011, the council will start work toward fulfilling all data requests online. The council will also be posting all of its committee reports online, saving an average of $35,000 per year.

The council will provide live streaming coverage of all proceedings which will also be indexed and provided as a searchable database. Along with the citizen facing website, council members will also be moving toward touch-screens over notepads at meetings.

The city hopes that these changes will save money, paper and increase the transparency of the council. The city will pay a $35,000 start-up cost and then a yearly maintenance and virtual-hosting fee of $23,000. SIRE Technologies will be creating the website and software for councilors.